Robert Hurst is the author of The Art of [Urban] Cycling, The Art of Mountain Biking: Singletrack Skills for All Riders, The Cyclist's Manifesto, Best Bike Rides Denver and Boulder, Road Biking Colorado's Front Range, Mountain Biking Colorado's San Juan Mountains: Durango and Telluride, and The Bicycle Commuter's Handbook.

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man’s moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it?

Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

-- Twain

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

City officials had refused to greenlight hikes in the program unless new management was brought in.

Walder brings decades of management experience to the system, including two stints at the MTA and Londons public transport system.

He was most recently the head of Hong Kongs subway system.His time there was marred by what was perceived has his poor handling of a high-speed rail project between the island and mainland China, and he was forced to leave a year before his contract expired.

REQX Ventures, a real estate company affiliated with Related Companies, along with Equinox, will buy Alta Bicycle Share, the company that manages the city’s bike-share program.REQX aims to double Citi Bike’s 6,000-bike fleet, according to Capital NY, and will be allowed to raise the rental fees.

People point to hills and weather as the biggest challenges facing bike share in Seattle. Wrong, it’s this:

In order for Pronto to operate in compliance with helmet laws, each station will also have a “helmet dispensing” device and a return bin. Helmets will be available to rent for $2, will be sanitized after each use, and cycled out after a certain number of uses. Expect to see more people walking around with their own bike helmets to beat the $2 fee.

Citi Bike has become a vital element of the city’s transportation network, providing a new flexible mode for many New Yorkers. Trips that were once 20-minute walks are now 5-minute bike rides, and places previously inacces- sible by public transit are now linked to the network.

In its first six months of operation, Citi Bike riders took more than 6 million trips, and by early January, nearly 100,000 riders spent $95 to become annual members.

Bixi owes the city $31.6 million on a $37-million city loan. Montreal also guaranteed a line of credit on which Bixi owes $6.4 million.That means Montreal taxpayers could be stuck with a $38-million bill, though the city hopes a sale of the international part of the business will cut that amount.Bixi also owes its suppliers $9 million.In total, then, Bixis total debt is at least $47 million.Bixi is also embroiled in multimillion-dollar lawsuits with a former software supplier.

Patronage has grown every year since the scheme was launched in 2010. It had its best-ever month in January, when 18,809 rentals were recorded. Last month there were 12,781 rentals, an average of 421 rides a day. More than 1000 courtesy helmets were added last month to boost patronage.

A system that is already proving to be ‘safe’ despite a barrage of pre-launch propaganda needed more bad press.

The security breach was discovered and corrected “at the end of May” and affected 1,174 customers who signed up for $95 annual memberships to the program, said Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the city Department of Transportation, which launched Citi Bike and controls all of the system’s communications to the public.

He did not explain the delay between the identification of the security flaw and notification of affected users.

According to NYC Bike Share LLC, a local subsidiary of system operator Alta Bicycle Share, an “error log” containing personal data on Citi Bike account holders was “briefly accessible” on the system’s website on April 15. The error was corrected as soon as it was discovered, NYC Bike Share President Michael Jones said in the letter.